Facebook Loosens Up Promotion Guidelines, Allows for Booze and Guns

In efforts to streamline its promotional guidelines, Facebook is relaxing on a few of its longstanding policies that have prohibited a number of goods from being communicated in contests and sweepstakes, including alarm-y things like “alcohol, dairy, gambling, & gasoline.”

The reason for the change? There are two, actually. First, Facebook is looking to make its policies across different legal categories more consistent with its overarching rules. The announcement states that Facebook is looking to streamline its guidelines to “make them easier to understand and consistent with the format of other Facebook Terms & Policies,” leaving it up to the companies running the sweepstakes to adhere to local laws and regulations.

But it’s important to note that Facebook’s new hands-off approach is by no means an endorsement of all the above-posted iffy-ness; rather, the newly simplified guidelines shift the burden of legal enforcement away from “Facebook, the platform,” and over to marketers themselves.

Rather than add an additional layer of legal complexity, Facebook is now leaving it up to marketers to run their promotions in ways that don’t violate local laws, such as restricting entry to residents of states without restrictions.